(Note: This post is part of a series for new technical leaders that are joining a new company, or taking over a new organization or team; and while written for new CTOs, VPs of Engineering, or Software Managers, could be applied to other technical positions.  This is also written largely for smaller to mid-size teams [...]

Hello everyone! I have a new post – only it isn’t a new post as much as a new section on my blog for new technology managers.  I am not quite done with all the posts yet, and will be finishing over the next couple of weeks. I started collecting and recording my thoughts from [...]

As I noted in previous post, I left my role to join a new team.  Before I left, a big part of my time was spent interviewing the potential candidates to replace me.  As I was setting up the process and working with my team, one of the first questions that came up was “How [...]

Once upon a time (and isn’t that how all good stories start)…. I was managing a software team and we were working several initiatives.  The way projects were assigned was based on who was available, their skillset, and their developmental goals.  This ended up resulting on two developers, let’s call them Mary and Melissa, being [...]

In a few weeks I am giving a talk on “Being Awesome in Your Job” and this is the first part of a series I am writing to help me prepare [FYI: For those who don't know me, I think out loud - in fact, to me thoughts aren't real until I verbalize them.  Therefore in [...]

While this post is about managing your manager, a better title might have been how to get your manager to invest in you without them knowing. I am leaving my current role in a couple of months, and the unfortunate part of that means leaving lot of wonderful people.  With my departure I have been [...]

Following up from my last post on goal setting and lightweight performance reviews, I wanted to add some information on the importance of using these tools as a way to motivate your team. I don’t know about you, but I typically dread reviews.  Why?  Well because mostly they are filled with all the critical or [...]

Everyone knows goal setting is important. For most companies goals are often part of the employee review/evaluation process.  However, when I was working on implementing a goal setting/tracking process for some of my engineering teams I went back to look at some of my old reviews and saw that the goal sections were actually pretty empty [...]

Software estimation is a nefarious art at times – no matter how hard you try, or how small you break up tasks, there will be times where the unforeseen adds up past your deadline.  Of course, when this happens to you as an individual contributor, there are lots of things you can do to compensate [...]